This invention relates generally to the display of information on display screens, and more particularly to the display of categorical information on display screens, utilizing visual factors to express the relative degree of importance of the categorical information. The invention is particularly applicable to the fields of television programming and related computer information display in the fields of terrestrial, cable, satellite or other distribution of video programming.
Various methods of displaying visual information on visual display screens, such as computer monitors and television screens, are well known in the art. Since the intent of a visual display is to convey information to the viewer of the display, various formats have evolved which are considered efficient when used for the display of particular types of visual information. For example, movies on television are generally presented using a full screen format, whereas temperature data for cities around the country are usually presented in a list format. Hybrid examples are also common, such as the full screen presentation of a sports event with the score and other numeric data of interest occupying a small area of the screen. Computer program data is commonly presented in a list, table, or matrix format and handheld remote controls and many computer programs utilize interactive menus and dropdown lists in combination with icon symbols.
The display of television programs and related information on television screens for terrestrial, cable, satellite and other video distribution systems can be divided into two types: the display of program pictures and the display of textual and numerical information. FIG. 1, for example, shows the display of a movie program on a display screen as well as the display of textual and numerical information relating to the program, xe2x80x9cBarbwire TNT 5-7 pm R ***xe2x80x9d in the bottom right corner of the screen. This type of information has in general been presented to the viewer in picture-in-picture, list, or grid arrangements on the display screen, according to the best manner to present the information to the viewer. Differentiation between information, such as between categories and associated subcategories, is typically accomplished by switching the images displayed on the screen or by changing the size and color of the textual and numerical information displayed. A category of information refers to a particular type of information having an identifying characteristic by which it can be identified and thus sorted from other categories of information. Thus, referring again to television programming as an example, types of categories might include sports, news, children, shopping, movies, and educational programs; subcategories of the category of sports, for example, might include baseball, football, basketball, soccer, hockey, tennis, and boxing.
While these methods are sufficient for displaying images and text and/or numerical information, there is currently no method in the art for displaying information indicative of the volume of programming or the frequency of use of the information displayed on the display screen. There is thus currently no mechanism by which the frequency of certain categories of information is displayed on the display screen, i.e. the xe2x80x9cfrequency of usexe2x80x9d, or the portion of all information that is displayed on the display screen over a given period of time that is devoted to a certain category of programming, i.e. the xe2x80x9cvolume of programmingxe2x80x9d, is visually presented to the viewer of the display screen.
As an example, consider a satellite system that provides television programming to viewers. Several categories of programming may be viewed by the viewer, including sports, news, movies, shopping, children, and educational programs. While certain information about a particular program, such as the type or category of the program, the description of the program, and the start/stop time of the program, may be readily available, the viewer does not have access to other information. The viewer does not have access to visual frequency of use information, such as how often certain categories of programming, like movies, are viewed by the viewer over other types of programming, like news. Nor is the viewer visually provided with volume of programming information.
Suppose, for instance, that the viewer wishes to know the relative volume of programming of the various subcategories of a category of programming, such as sports. The viewer may wish to know what volume of sports programming is devoted to various subcategories of sports, like baseball, football, basketball, soccer, hockey, tennis, and boxing. Is 50% of all sports programming devoted to baseball, football, and basketball? Does boxing only account for 5% of all sports programming? This type of volume of programming information is not readily and visually provided to the display screen viewer. Often the arrangement of categories and subcategories is in the form of an alphabetical list, with no concern whatsoever given to volume of programming and frequency of use information. Such systems that do not display the volume of programming or frequency of use information have no value without the display screen, which is the sole visual interface with the viewer. This is especially true for computer monitor displays which may have no audio channel. It is therefore critical that a maximum amount of visual information be provided to the viewer through the display screen.
In light of the above discussion, it is clear that there exists a need in the art to be able to provide a maximum amount of visual information to a viewer of a display screen. In particular, there is a need to display information concerning volume of programming or frequency of use information to the viewer in a visual manner.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to be able to provide maximum visual information about categorical information being displayed on a display screen.
According to the present invention, a method and structure provides for the display of categorical information which utilized scale and location of displayed information to express the degree of importance of the information being displayed to a viewer of the information vis-{dot over (a)}-vis other information being displayed. A measuring value, such as a volume of programming value or a frequency of use value, is typically selected. The measuring value may be selected by the viewer through appropriate manipulation of a user interface, such as a remote control device of an audio/visual system (AV) or a graphical user interface (GUI) of a computer-based system, or it may be set by a computer program in communication with the user interface that operates to determine the relative degree of importance of the categorical information and display it on the display screen. After the measuring value has been selected, a plurality of categories is displayed on the display screen by the computer program so as to indicate visually to the viewer through one or more visual factors, such as scale and location, the relative importance of each of the categories of the plurality of categories as measured by the measuring value. The computer program further operates to update the categorical information displayed on the display screen, in response to any changes detected in the selected measuring value. The present invention is also applicable to the display of subcategories of one or more the categories.